tonguing

Irish Flute
1

Hi all,
I just noticed this thread lurking at the bottom of the list…
I use tonguing as a technique on the tin whistle and initaly used it on the flute.. At the Clancy school one Summer I had Eamonn Cotter as a tutor and his advice was tonguing suits the whistle but not to use tonguing on the flute use glottal stops instead.It took a lot of practice but I agree with him I think the technique suits the flute better..I found that if done well it’s hard to tell the two apart.. Occasionally if I’ve played a lot of tin whistle I have to make an effort not to tongue notes but I think it’s worth it..

2

Same thing was mentioned by Catherine McEnvoy.

  • Craig
3

The funny thing with me is that I’m able to tongue on the whistle, but if it’s on flute, I fail miserably. My lips somehow become more relaxed if I tongue and the tone dies out. But I still want to be able to do the triple-tongue technique. I think it’s amazing.

Cheers,
Chih

4

Hi all:

I haven’t discussed this with Mike Rafferty, but it sounds like he uses glottal stops. BUt most of the time he avoids any kind of articulation. Occasoinally he’ll say to me, “You’ve got to puff it out,” which I take to mean you articulate using your breath. Mostly, though, he’ll put in a roll or something, especially on repeated notes at the end of a phrase.

Tim

5

Actually that’s a better description of it, you don’t actually stop off the air supply like a full glottal stop but more contract your tummy muscles inwards so you get a puff of air.. It gives a sound like tonguing but by using your diaphragm muscle instead.. I supppose like the way singers do a vibrato..
Edith..

6

In Eldarion’s recent post about Harry Bradley’s pulsing sound and glottal “patterns”, I wondered aloud (as a non-fluter) whether we were really talking about what linguists would call a glottal stop, and then took the liberty of emailing Harry about it.

For your interest, this is what he replied:

It's an articulation with the throat. It's possible to do it to a lesser extent than full staccato to accent the rhythm of a tune in various ways and to emphasise phrase endings and that. The throat is regulating the airstream like it does when you cough or pronounce certain sounds. I wouldn't call it a glottal stop, but there's a whole world of odd terminology on these lists!
7

A stop by any other name…

Catherine McEvoy sometimes calls it a “gutteral stop.” I agree that it’s probably not a true glottal stop (which I assume is what happens when you say a word like “bot’tle”), but it feels pretty close.

One way to start learning this technique might be to hum a tune staccato-like so there’s a space between every note. Now try to achieve the same kind of effect on the flute while blowing with a tight embouchure and some force, and cutting off the air the same way you cut off your voice when you were humming.

I just tried this and paid attention to what I was doing with my abdomen: I don’t feel like I’m pushing from my belly to get the pulse, the abdomen is more steadily supporting my air column and the pulse feels like it’s coming from higher up. I think what’s happening is that I’m closing my windpipe and using my abdominal muscles to create a reservoir of compressed air that I then release in controlled fashion. The throat controls the initial release (creating the pulse) and the tight embouchure controls the airstream.

Mike Rafferty uses throat articulation–you can hear him vocalize a bit while he’s playing. That doesn’t happen with tonguing. Even Matt Molloy, who plays in an even smoother style than Mike’s, vocalized on some of the stops on his “black” album (first solo album).

I used tonguing for articulation on the flute for about 10 years, then switched to glottal/gutteral around 1997 after a workshop with Catherine McEvoy. Switching was tough, but I now much prefer the rhythmic effect of throat articulation over tonguing. That said, there are some brilliant traditional (and not-so-traditional!) flute players who articulate entirely or mostly by tonguing, such as Deirdre Havlin and Brian Finnegan.

I’m pretty sure Kevin Crawford tongues those famous triplets of his, although it’s possible to use throat articulation to achieve a similar effect. Catherine McEvoy used the latter technique on one of the hornpipes she recorded on her album with Felix Dolan. It’s really hard to do without vocalizing.

Okay, that’s way more than I intended to say, so now I’ll *stop."